...sovereignty and contend that any claim to terra nullius status for the island should fail. Given Tonga’s status as an archipelago, I suspect there’s some merit to this position if one assumes the island emerged within Tonga’s existing archipelagic baselines (see, e.g.,
UNCLOS Arts. 46, 47 and 49, defining an “archipelago” as a “group of islands, including parts of islands, interconnecting waters . . . which are so closely interrelated that such islands, waters and other natural features form an intrinsic geographical, economic and political entity, or which historically have...